Editor’s note: This is an opinion piece from MLive.com reporter Kyle Meinke.
DETROIT -- Remember when the Lions raced to a 23-6 lead in last year’s opener against Chicago? Only to allow 21 unanswered points in a stunning loss? Or when they jumped to a 14-3 lead in Green Bay the following week? Only to allow 31 unanswered points in a stunning loss? Or when they needed fewer than 5 minutes to jump to a 14-0 lead two weeks later against New Orleans? Only to allow 35 unanswered points in a stunning loss?
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
The Lions lost nine times after leading by double digits under Matt Patricia, an NFL high during that span, and six times in a row during one particularly gnarly stretch, which -- and this might not surprise you -- is an NFL record. Patricia looooved to talk tough, my God did that man love to talk tough, but his teams will go down as some of the softest to have ever played this game.
Nobody -- and I do mean nobody, ever, in the 101-year history of this league -- coughed up double-digit leads quite like those Lions teams. Hell, they lost nearly twice as many games in which they led (23) as they actually won (13) under Matt Patricia. That’s kind of impressive, in a sick, twisted kind of way. There’s a reason that guy got hosed after Thanksgiving last year -- because his teams were soft, undisciplined, lacked heart, just weren’t talented enough. I don’t quite know what the deal was, but it was some constellation of all the above.
All of which is to say, although the Lions lost 41-33 on opening day against the San Francisco 49ers, it was also hard not to be encouraged by Dan Campbell’s excavation project in Detroit. Because they still aren’t talented enough, let’s just get that out of the way. This roster is deeply flawed, and it was always going to take multiple offseasons to undo what Quinntricia did to it.
But they showed a lot of heart.
The Lions trailed 41-17 at the 2-minute warning, a beating if there ever was one. Then Jared Goff threw touchdown passes to D’Andre Swift (43 yards) and Quintez Cephus (2 yards), Jamaal Williams pounded another TD on the ground (1 yard), Cephus and T.J. Hockenson caught 2-point conversion passes, Godwin Igwebuike recovered an onside kick, Trey Flowers forced a fumble -- all on the other side of the 2-minute warning, after thousands of fans had already gotten tired of booing their team and headed for the exits.
“The fans were awesome,” rookie Penei Sewell said after a promising debut at left tackle. “I wish they would have stayed a little longer, but ... "
Sure. But you can hardly blame them either. Not after what they’ve had to see, year after year after year after year.
Then again, the Lions didn’t spend all offseason offloading personnel for no reason. They knew there was a problem in Allen Park, and it went far beyond the losses. There was a cultural problem. Maybe a heart problem. Who knows? When you’re that bad, it’s usually a bunch of things. Either way, they certainly lacked heart, especially when they needed it most.
So they canned Patricia and the horse he rode in on, Bob Quinn. They fired most of the staff, turned over more than half the roster, and set course for a new, more collaborative vision of this football thing. And the good vibes have been impossible to miss since Dan Campbell walked through that door in January.
Good vibes alone don’t win games. But players do, and you can already see how much they love playing for Campbell. There was no quit on Sunday. And while it was just one Sunday, yes, and who knows how the others will go, I think it’s encouraging to see the backbone Detroit has suddenly grown under its new coach.
“We didn’t do enough to win,” Campbell said. “We dug ourselves in a really big ditch early against a very good team. Everything that we said that we needed to do to win this game we really didn’t do. We were better in the second half. We gave ourselves a chance. But it wasn’t good enough.”
Also true. The Lions seem like they’re headed in the right direction, but the current roster construct remains deeply flawed. They’re just not very talented, and there’s probably going to be a lot more losses where this one came from.
That’s especially true if Jared Goff isn’t better.
The Lions are building for 2022 and beyond, and have been explicit about that. But they’ve built a team that should be capable of grinding out some yards on the ground this season, and there was a lot of success there against San Francisco too. Jamaal Williams got the start after turning in a consistent summer, and ran for 54 yards on nine carries, plus that touchdown during the furious comeback. D’Andre Swift came off the bench after nursing a groin injury throughout camp and accounted for 104 yards, 43 of which came on a terrific 43-yard catch-and-run.
The Lions averaged 4.8 yards per run, while their top two running backs accounted for 214 yards of offense. That’s a pretty good day. The problem is Detroit fell behind by a lot, as much as 28 points, and had to park that thing in the garage while dialing up 57 passes from Jared Goff. And, well, that is very much not how this team is built to win.
Goff’s struggles in Los Angeles are well-documented, and it was more of the same throughout training camp. He wasn’t getting the ball down the field, and often not even trying. He checked down and checked down and checked down and checked down, and seemed almost proud of that approach.
“Check downs are my friend,” Goff said.
Check downs are your friend like your crazy uncle is your friend -- in small doses, my man.
But Goff relied on them almost every day, almost all the time. The Lions insisted the deep ball was coming, but when the season opened, Goff continued to check down like they were his only friend. He threw for 338 yards, the fourth-highest total in the NFL, but needed 57 passes to do it. That’s an average of 5.9 yards per attempt. Only four quarterbacks averaged fewer yards per attempt across the league, two of whom were Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan, whose teams combined for nine points.
Goff completed 38 passes, which was 12 more than the number of passes Matthew Stafford even attempted in his debut with the Rams. But those completions traveled an average of just 3.8 yards through the air, worse than every quarterback in the league except Andy Dalton and Jalen Hurts.
Stafford’s completions? They traveled an average of 8.9 yards, more than twice as long as Goff’s.
This has always been among the most noticeable differences in the post-Stafford era. Goff has simply struggled to get the football downfield, and rarely even tried it. Week 1 was more of the same. Goff completed 15 of his 20 passes in the first half, but just two of them even went to a receiver at all -- both to Tyrell Williams -- and accounted for just 92 yards.
Then Goff ran out of the tunnel for the third quarter, and completed just one more pass to a receiver, a 3-yarder to Amon-Ra St. Brown -- the rookie receiver he missed in the end zone with one of his few downfield attempts in the first half.
The Lions simply aren’t good enough to win when their quarterback is missing wide-open receivers in the end zone. They aren’t very good in general, but they’re definitely not good enough to win when their quarterback is throwing pick-sixes into the teeth of the defense, as Goff did during what turned out to be a decisive 31-3 run for San Francisco.
“That was one we all wish he would have had back, and I’m sure he does too,” Campbell said. “He just kind of hung on (T.J.) Hockenson too long and it bit us in the ass.
“Now, we had a chance. We gave ourselves a chance. But we have to eliminate all the little stuff. There’s going to be so much stuff to clean up on that tape.”
No doubt. It was hard not to walk away from that game encouraged by the direction of the Detroit Lions under Dan Campbell. They showed fight and heart. They seem like they’re together in a way they never were under Matt Patricia. There were so many bad vibes leaking out of that locker room, even before a 31-point beat down on opening night against the Jets.
The Lions lost in Dan Campbell’s debut too. They’re going to lose a lot this season, especially if Jared Goff passes 57 times per game. But they never gave up. You get the sense a culture change is already underway, and that better days just might be ahead.
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